Reid’s First Three Weeks at Preschool

Wow, preschool is a doozy.  I seriously do not know what I am going to do when it is time to send my boys off to kindergarten let alone college.  I am hopeful that I will be more mentally prepared than I was for the preschool emotions.  I wrote a blog post, hoping to get out all of my feelings so I wouldn’t be a mess on preschool drop off.  Well folks, that failed.  Thank goodness, Drew came with me to drop off as he was the one that actually dropped Reid off as I was crying a couple feet behind them.  Gosh, the hallway to his classroom felt like a mile!  It was pretty painful.After the first day jitters, I thought that we were in the clear.  Well I was corrected, Thursday rolled around and Reid screamed and cried in the car as I pulled in.  Enter waterworks from him, causing me to let the floodgates open.  I really do not understand how people can wait until they are in their car to cry…I mean it is out of my control (and pretty inappropriate in front of other children, I am very grateful for sunglasses).  The whole first 2 weeks/weekends, Reid came into “mommy’s bed” which meant that none of us got good sleep.  He woke up super early (about 2 hours earlier than normal) throughout the week.  The following week at school, his tears were a little less strong but still there.  Luckily, this mama got her strength and stopped crying at the sight/sound of her toddler crying.  It seriously sucks. This past week, I thought that the tears would have completely stopped.  But again, I was proven wrong.  Reid continues to cling onto my neck and cry whenever I leave the classroom.  His teachers swear that he only cries for a minute or less when I leave, but it is still painful to hear my sweet boy cry.  My initial thought was that I was going to take him out of preschool.  I mean he is only 2 and if he doesn’t like going then he doesn’t need to go.  The more I have noticed his response is ‘please don’t go’ rather than ‘I hate it here and don’t like it’, the more I feel like sticking it out is the right way to go.  I really wrestle with the idea of taking him out, but something changed this week and I feel like I am doing the right thing by keeping him in.I will say he is excited and happy when I pick him up and from what I gather he is having fun playing with toys and trucks.  He can name the majority of kids in his class (knows all the boys and one girl) and really enjoys his teachers.

Needless to say, the start of preschool has been emotionally rough all the way around.  The lack of sleep and turmoil with this transition has been a lot more challenging than I could have imagined.  However, I feel like we are getting out of the haze and he will flourish and love school.  I look forward to hearing more about his friends and hope he continues to have a smile on his face when I pick him up.